Nothing says summer like fresh cherries. Hand pies are a fun, grab-and-go alternative to a traditional pie, and fruit fillings can vary from berries to stone fruit to apples and pears. As with all crusts, you want to work with cold butter and ice cold water for best results. Use coarse sugar to sprinkle your cherry hand pies before baking. The thicker the crystal, the more resistant it is to heat—it will therefore add a little texture to your finished product. Also, that sparkling sugar looks beautiful!
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View CartCherry Hand Pies
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PREP:
25 minutes
COOK:
30 minutes
YIELD:
10 hand pies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 12 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
- 3 tablespoons ice cold water
- 1 ½ cups pitted cherries
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 2 teaspoons cornstarch
- Juice and zest of 1 lemon
- 1 egg, whisked together with 1 tablespoon of water
- Coarse sugar for sprinkling
Directions
- Place the flour and salt in a food processor fitted with a metal blade and pulse three or four times to combine. Add the cold butter and pulse until the butter is in very small pieces. With the machine running, add the ice water and process until the dough begins to come together. It won’t form a ball and that is okay. Transfer the dough to a floured work surface and, using your hands, bring the dough together, working as quickly as you can so that the dough doesn’t get warm from your hands. Shape the dough into a flat disc, wrap in parchment or plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for 20 minutes.
- Combine the cherries, sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice and zest in a pan over medium-high heat. Stirring continuously, bring to a soft boil and then reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer until the mixture thickens and the cherries soften, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
- Preheat the oven to 400°F and line a baking sheet with a Silpat mat or parchment paper. Flour a work surface and roll out the dough until it is about ?-inch thick. Using a 3-inch round cookie cutter, cut as many circles as you can. Transfer half of the circles to the prepared baking sheet and top each with a heaping tablespoon of cherry filling. Use the remaining dough circles to top each pie on the baking sheet. Make ½-inch slits on the top of each pie with a knife. Using the tines of a fork, crimp the edges to ensure pies won't open during baking. You can use the pastry scraps to roll out additional pie circles.
- Brush the tops of the pies with the egg wash and sprinkle generously with coarse sugar. Bake in the oven until the pies are golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Note(s):
This cherry hand pie recipe can easily be doubled.
Hand pies freeze beautifully. You want to freeze them before you do the egg wash and final sugar sprinkle steps. When you are ready to bake, brush with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar and bake from frozen (no need to thaw, just add a few minutes of cooking time).
Fruit alternatives: blueberries, strawberries, boysenberries, peaches, nectarines, plums, apples, pears.
This dough isn’t sweet so you could easily use it to make savory hand pies as well.
The reason to have cold ingredients is to prevent the butter from melting before baking. Cold ingredients will result in a flakier dough.
A food processor is ideal for making the dough because it works quickly, so the dough doesn’t have a chance to get warm.
If you don’t have a food processor, make the dough in the morning when it’s cooler and make sure your hands aren’t overly warm.
Using a marble board will keep ingredients cold.
Serve your hand pies as-is or with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
A Silpat mat or parchment paper will help keep the pies from sticking to your baking sheet.
